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INTRODUCTION: 24-hour movement behaviours (physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep) during the early years are associated with health and developmental outcomes, prompting the WHO to develop Global guidelines for physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under 5 years of age. Prevalence data on 24-hour movement behaviours is lacking, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). This paper describes the development of the SUNRISE International Study of Movement Behaviours in the Early Years protocol, designed to address this gap.METHODS AND ANALYSIS: SUNRISE is the first international cross-sectional study that aims to determine the proportion of 3- and 4-year-old children who meet the WHO Global guidelines. The study will assess if proportions differ by gender, urban/rural location and/or socioeconomic status. Executive function, motor skills and adiposity will be assessed and potential correlates of 24-hour movement behaviours examined. Pilot research from 24 countries (14 LMICs) informed the study design and protocol. Data are collected locally by research staff from partnering institutions who are trained throughout the research process. Piloting of all measures to determine protocol acceptability and feasibility was interrupted by COVID-19 but is nearing completion. At the time of publication 41 countries are participating in the SUNRISE study.ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The SUNRISE protocol has received ethics approved from the University of Wollongong, Australia, and in each country by the applicable ethics committees. Approval is also sought from any relevant government departments or organisations. The results will inform global efforts to prevent childhood obesity and ensure young children reach their health and developmental potential. Findings on the correlates of movement behaviours can guide future interventions to improve the movement behaviours in culturally specific ways. Study findings will be disseminated via publications, conference presentations and may contribute to the development of local guidelines and public health interventions.

To avert the continued deterioration of Philippine forests and its negative consequences on the environment, the Aquino administration executed the National Greening Program (NGP) as the reforestation initiative of the government from 2011 to 2016. This study focuses on the scoping and process evaluation of the NGP using household survey, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions data gathered from the randomly chosen sites in the provinces of Zambales, Negros Occidental, and Dinagat Islands. Key results showed that the NGP household recipients experienced some marginal increase in average real income, though it was not statistically significant. The same is true when comparing NGP household recipients versus non-NGP household recipients. Propensity score matching results revealed that the effects of NGP on the local people have evidently induced bigger household size, higher number of working household members, and positive perception on NGP activities. In summary, there is no "one-size fits all" NGP strategy that would increase the likelihood of success. Recommended modification in the next program on Natural Forest and Landscape Restoration Program can focus on adjustments in allocated budget for forest development per hectare, revisions of incentives appropriate in a given reforestation site, and increased support to forest protection of existing forests, among many other suggested actions.

This presentation assesses the potential economic and poverty effects of the National Greening Program in the Phillipines in 2012-2050.

For any developing country, improving the quality of higher education institutions is of paramount interest to government agencies especially the Commission on Higher Education. Several reforms have taken place and that one of the initiatives being done is rationalizing the structure of public higher education and improving the budget to ensure resource mobilization and cost efficiency. Despite these efforts, there are several issues that need to be addressed and one is the voluntary nature of the accreditation system. Another related issue is the number of multiple agencies catering to the accreditation of the various higher education institutions. This paper reviews the existing accreditation processes and roles of accrediting bodies to present a clearer perspective on the current situation of higher education institutions. Similar to other countries in the region, the accreditation process in the country is initiated by the private sector and is also voluntary, which adheres to the nature of the academe. Though it is a way of fostering academic freedom and motivating some institutions to compete, this could result in complacency in others. Policy implications include reshaping the institution in terms of keeping an accreditation mechanism built into the system, such as a quality assurance framework.

This brief describes food safety risks along the value chain, identifies drivers of change, presents the risks posed to the poor by both food safety challenges and responses to them, and underscores the use of risk-based analysis to craft effective food safety policies that benefit both poor consumers and poor producers.

This paper tries to characterize the current situation in the Philippines with respect to the goal of the Aquino administration to be food secure and self-sufficient in rice by 2016. Specifically, it aims to address the question: "Should the government continue its efforts in increasing rice productivity to achieve food self-sufficiency, or should it focus instead on increasing the production of high-value crops for exports, in the aim of achieving food security?" The study finds that the Philippines is far from being food secure. Looking at the food-trade balance at the macro level, it was noted that food security has deteriorated through time due to increased imports. At the micro level, several indicators of food self-sufficiency and food security were identified. A negative correlation between food self-sufficiency and all four indicators of food security namely: 1) value of food consumption, 2) share of nonstaples, 3) share of animal products, and 4) proportion of households with sufficient food, was established with respect to the relationship of food security, food self-sufficiency, and well-being. Rice self-sufficiency on the other hand, was found to be positively correlated with food security and per capita expenditure, which is a measure of standard of living. Moreover, the paper looked into the relationship of agricultural exports on food security. In particular, it examined the effect of expanding the production of high-value crops for export, and its possible contribution to food insecurity, in terms of reducing the domestic food production. Results revealed that the expansion of export crop production will not displace crop land, nor will it have a significant effect on staple crop availability or prices.

Maintaining smallholder competitiveness in the changing market for pigs and pig meat remains an important development challenge, particularly in the context of pro-poor public policymaking. With the ongoing rapid changes in market organizations to respond to changing consumer demand and market requirements, there are viable institutional options and market organizations for smallholders to remain active participants in the pig industry where they are substantially contributing in terms of total output. Results from this study suggest that there is limited scope for smallholder pig producers to participate in formal contracts; however, smallholders were found to participate in informal contracts with cooperatives and with input/output traders that facilitated their access to pig markets. But what drives these smallholders to participate in these types of contractual arrangements for pig and piglet production? A multinomial logit model is applied to reveal the determinants influencing the choice of contractual arrangements by smallholder pig producers in four provinces in Northern Vietnam. Results suggest that the significant determinants of smallholders’ participation in contractual arrangements are age, proportion of time spent in pig-raising, location, distance to veterinary shops, and access to animal health services.

This paper presents the results of an empirical study of the Indian Poultry Industry which is specially focused on the social and environmental outcomes generated by the rapidly increasing scale of egg and broiler production in India. Among the effects of these rapid changes that occurred in the poultry industry include increased risk for animal health, changes in demand patters in terms of amount, quality, and food safety, higher prices for high value items; but there is also a threat to smallholders that they will be excluded from more demanding markets. There are important questions, which have arisen with the industrialization of poultry activity in India. Is the scaling up of production driving small producers to disadvantage on account of high transaction costs, policy distortions and environment externalities? Why do some poultry farms have higher incomes than others? Do large farms earn more profit per unit of output than small farms? What explains the differentials in efficiency? An attempt is made here to take stock of these changes and to assess their social and environmental outcomes particularly those that affect the welfare of poor. The paper starts by examining the state of the Indian Poultry Industry, and then it goes in dealing with selected socio-economic, health, and environment changes that affect the competitiveness of livestock production including domestic institutional arrangement of food safety standards.

he rapid growth in consumer demand for livestock offers an opportunity to reduce poverty among smallholder livestock farmers in the developing world. These farmers’ opportunity may be threatened, however, by competition from larger-scale farms. This report assesses the potential threat, examining various forms of livestock production in Brazil, India, the Philippines, and Thailand. Findings show that the competitiveness of smallholder farms depends on the opportunity cost of family labor and farmers’ ability to overcome barriers to the acquisition of production- and market-related information and assets. Pro-poor livestock development depends, therefore, on the strengthening of institutions that will help smallholders overcome the disproportionately high transaction costs in securing quality inputs and obtaining market recognition for quality outputs. These and other findings make this report a useful guide for researchers and others concerned with the opportunities and risks of smallholder livestock farming.

"Contract farming is conventionally thought of as a form of industrial organization that helps to overcome high monitoring, supervision, and environmental mitigation costs incurred from ensuring a reliable and uniform-quality supply (from the standpoint of integrators) and high capital and small-scale input and service purchase costs (from the standpoint of individual farmers). But contract farming is also a private sector vertical coordination response to the changing demand for certifying the use of quality inputs to produce quality outputs and of safe production procedures. This paper draws on lessons learned from experiences in the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam to illustrate how contract farming accomplishes that goal." from Author's Abstract

"With the Biotech Revolution, questions are being asked about what role the government should play in the process—does public research in developing countries play a role? Can governments speed the spread of technology by offering complementary services? Unlike the public investment–driven Green Revolution in cereals, the “Poultry Revolution” in developing countries was driven by the successful transfer of biological technology developed by the private sector in the developed world to developing countries. This paper uses a supply response function to measure the importance of different types of private technology and of public investments on poultry productivity. The findings confirm that imported private technology was important to the growth of the poultry industry but also emphasize the importance of complementary government investments such as veterinary services." from authors' abstract

"Contract farming is emerging as an important form of vertical coordination in the agrifood supply chain in India, and its socioeconomic consequences are attracting considerable attention in public policy debates. This study is an empirical assessment of the costs and benefits of contract farming in milk using information generated through field surveys in the western state of Rajasthan. Contract farming is found to be more profitable than independent production. Its major benefits come from a reduction in marketing and transaction costs, which are otherwise much higher in the open markets. Contract farming also contributes toward improving milk yield and reducing production costs, albeit not significantly. Dairy producers also benefit from provision of services and technical advice by integrators/firms who secure milk supplies from farmers through contract. The benefits of contract farming vary by scale of operation. Economies of scale are also important determinants of competitiveness, in which large farms (both contract and independent) have lower per unit cost due to buying of inputs in bulk and greater access to markets. Smallholders, on the other hand, derive significant benefits from a reduction in marketing and transaction costs due to their participation in contract farming." from authors' abstract

"Pig production in the Philippines has intensified in the urban and peri-urban areas in response to a radical structural change in the pig industry and a growing demand for pork products. Alongside this rapid growth is the emergence of societal concern about the increasing negative environmental externalities that the industry produces, particularly those related to the disposal of waste and dead animals. Pig producers are said to benefit from negative externalities when they do not bear the full social costs of their business enterprise. Non-internalization of such externalities occurs when pig producers receive payment for their output while not investing in pollution abatement or not making compensatory payments to surrounding communities affected by their production processes. In some cases, producers are able to recycle all nutrients from swine production on-farm through various cropping mechanisms. In other cases, pig production is so large that there is no land to properly dispose of such by-products without some environmental mitigation effort. Failure to implement any sort of measure will most likely lead to an environmental externality. To determine whether a farmer has the ability to utilize all manure produced on-farm, we use a mass balance calculation approach in this paper. Results for the mass balance calculations suggest that, in general, smaller farms generate less excess nutrients per hectare than larger farms. This is because most small-scale pig farms are mixed systems where some croplands are available for nutrient assimilation. Large commercial farms tend to be “pure land-intensive” systems. We used a Tobit regression analysis to determine the factors affecting environmental mitigation expenditures of pig farms. Results of the regression showed that smaller farms tend to respond to opportunities to make use of manure as fertilizer on their own farms and crops. For large farms, no single factor significantly influenced mitigation costs. An interpretation of why this is so or what this result implies apparently cannot be achieved without ambiguity. Thus, we do not attempt to do so and we leave the matter for further investigation. With respect to the effects of production arrangement on environmental capture, the factors that significantly influenced mitigation costs varied between independent and contract farms. Only the operation of croplands mattered for independent producers. For contract farms, lands that are classified as agricultural carried the expected positive coefficient sign. Further, farmers in the industrial pig sector, which is concentrated in peri-urban areas favored by market access or feed availability, may consider being located as close as possible to cropland that they can use to dispose of the wastes in pig production. Policy options include zoning, mandatory nutrient management plans, licensing or limiting the number of animals raised per production unit, and contractual agreements between livestock producers and crop farmers. The effectiveness of such regulations will depend largely on the degree to which they are enforced and whether they are accompanied by a well-developed system of education and extension with focus on proper manure management systems and dead animal disposal." from Author's Abstract

Research has shown that gainful participation in livestock markets is an important means of reducing poverty in developing countries, particularly for rural and periurban households. The rapid growth in demand for meat and milk, along with the corresponding expansion of livestock markets to connect consumers and suppliers, presents real opportunities for smallholders to generate income by raising livestock. Nevertheless, the structural changes associated with increasing urbanization taking place in these markets, the greater integration between domestic and global markets, and the emergence of a more stringent regulatory environment also present significant threats to participation by poor households. Further, as the market for livestock products rapidly grows, smallholders have to compete with large-scale commercial producers for market share, particularly at the domestic level, and if market forces and policy environments are biased toward larger-scale producers, smallholders are often displaced. IFPRI has identified research on the future of smallholder farming as a priority for improving our understanding of the relationship between livestock sector development and poverty reduction, thereby enhancing opportunities for smallholders, and countering threats. To this end, this study begins by examining the market forces, structural factors, and policies that affect the scale of pig production, and then goes on to identify strategies for enhancing smallholder participation and competitiveness in a rapidly growing livestock market. The study offers a new way of conceptualizing the problems that lead to the exclusion of smallholders from live hog and pork markets, explaining why some smallholders participate successfully, while others do not. Determinants are identified using limited-dependent variable models based on the hypothesis that transaction costs, such as access to credit and market information, affect market participation. The report also presents a contemporary approach to measuring profit efficiency in hog production for the case of Southern Luzon, Philippines. Although the findings of this study are specific to the Philippine context, many of the issues confronted are common to the challenges of participation, upscaling processes, and policy interventions across the developing world. The research has generated solid empirical perspectives of the changing situation of poor smallholder producers in a high-value market situation. IFPRI thus continues to examine the effect of mechanisms like contract farming on collective action as a means of increasing smallholder participation in high-value markets, particularly in developing countries in Asia and Africa, where small farms continue to dominate the landscape.

"This essay describes the views of Philippines livestock sector stakeholders concerning the events and issues associated with the rapid rise in hog and poultry production, based on rapid reconnaissance interviews and gray literature from studies in Southern Luzon, Iloilo and Northern Mindanao, and the impressions of the authors. Changing demographic patterns, decentralized eco-governance, trade liberalization, and health and environmental policies have major impacts on further livestock intensification and on increasing scale of operations. Six factors appear to affect small farmers' decisions to intensify or raise livestock, or remain in the livestock industry. These are 1) access to financial capital; 2) technical knowledge about livestock production and their sources of information; 3) social capital expressed as trust in integrators, in the primary buyers of the livestock, and in government; 4) demographic characteristics, such as gender and age; 5) farmer perceptions of the policy environment (prices, feeds, health and environmental policies, and the local ordinances affecting the livestock sector); and 6) access to reliable markets for outputs across the year." Authors' Abstract

Economic reform programs assume that major goods are tradable, such that depreciation of the real exchange rate raises the value of output compared to factor costs in domestic currency. In Tanzania, major food staples that account for most real income are non-tradables in at least one-quarter of the country. This is demonstrated and implications assessed for the constraints imposed on macroeconomic-led adjustment strategies.

This essay describes the views of Philippines livestock sector stakeholders concerning the events and issues associated with the rapid rise in hog and poultry production, based on rapid reconnaissance interviews and gray literature from studies in Southern Luzon, Iloilo and Northern Mindanao, and the impressions of the authors. Changing demographic patterns, decentralized eco-governance, trade liberalization, and health and environmental policies have major impacts on further livestock intensification and on increasing scale of operations. Six factors appear to affect small farmers' decisions to intensify or raise livestock, or remain in the livestock industry. These are 1) access to financial capital; 2) technical knowledge about livestock production and their sources of information; 3) social capital expressed as trust in integrators, in the primary buyers of the livestock, and in government; 4) demographic characteristics, such as gender and age; 5) farmer perceptions of the policy environment (prices, feeds, health and environmental policies, and the local ordinances affecting the livestock sector); and 6) access to reliable markets for outputs across the year.